3M22 Zircon Hypersonic Cruise Missile

Arrow wrote:Yes China DF 41 missile it is more modern from Yars and Sarmat. Liquid fuel missiles are backward technology. Even China does not develop it anymore

I've always been impressed by your eagerness to embarass yourself in a public forum.   Thanks for the laugh!

I'm surprised we haven't spoke much on this but, what are the prospects of Zircon's technology improving other existing missile types, such as ATGMs, SAMs, or even ICBM warheads? I remember some 4 years ago we had brief discussions on this board about how Zircon potentially permanently end the need for the 'Bus' on MIRV'd ICBM warheads. The premise would be that technology crossover from Zircon could potentially be passed on to individual warheads and they could fly independently on their own, potentially discarding the need for the final stage.

That is more avandgard than Zircon... even moving at mach 9 it is still only moving at about 3km/s which is nothing like the speed ICBMs and SLBMs will be moving at.

In terms of impact the real implications will be in replacing rocket weapons with powered engine driven weapons... so for instance an R-37M missile with a solid rocket motor will have two types of fuel... a high energy short burn fuel, and a slower burning lower energy fuel that will burn for several minutes rather than seconds... the result is the the high energy short burn fuel will take it from high altitude and high speed launch up to a much higher altitude with thin cold air and low drag, where its lower energy rocket motor will burn for minutes countering drag and maintaining speed to extend range... and because its top speed will be something like mach 6 and it will coast all the way to the target area 300KM away at that speed and then dive on the target... that is the limit of rocket technology.

The point is the fuel is fixed as are the burn times... if launched from low altitude it will never reach very high altitude and will fly through much higher drag air and slow down so while it will still burn exactly the same amount of time it might only travel 100-120km from a low altitude launch or even less.

With a scramjet engine the missile can use its throttle and it can climb with a full thrust setting for longer no matter what height it is launched from though max height and speed will help with range it will be better able to adapt to different launch conditions... plus it could fly much faster and higher because above about mach 5 it will use body lift.

So in answer to your comments... current rocket and ramjet powered weapons could all be replaced by a more efficient scramjet propulsion, from anti ship missiles to heavy SAMs and AAMs and even cruise missiles of various types because a ramjet is much more efficient than rocket or turbojet at high speeds.

Note missiles with ramjets like Onyx or SA-4 or SA-6 could greatly benefit from a scramjet, the most obvious change would be from a circular intake to a square one that is easier to control the air flow as they could do what they were already doing but at a much higher speed.

ATGMs are too small to get enormous benefit I suspect but there is potential for scramjet powered ATGMs... most will start with a rocket booster and then the scramjet will kick in and accelerate it further... tiny engines on APFSDS rounds or even bullets could extend effective range of tank rounds... in fact with the acceleration you might find it is more effective at 10km range than at 2km range because it had time to accelerate to a higher speed.

Imagine a bullet that is a hollow tube whose core acts like a scramjet... low drag because the air flows through it as well as round it...

SA-4 (Osa) uses solid-fuel rocket motor. No air intakes.

SA-4 and Osa are two different missiles... SA-4 is an enormous missile with solid rocket boosters located around a huge centre body with a ramjet propulsion, and Osa is a tiny SHORAD called SA-8...

I think air-breathing scramjet is pretty much limited to long range applications where a short rocket burn isn't sufficient but speed is important.
So anti-ship, intermediate ground strike, long range SAMs & air-to-air missiles, anti-radiation for SEAD/anti-AWACS.

Sensor tech for finding/tracking targets at those kind of speeds may be relevant for other types though.

I can tell you off about that because I never make mistakes... NOT...

 I am not upset, and you shouldn't be either...  

Now your reply should be "Excellent" based on your avatar...

Now that it's confirmed that Zircon can be launched from the the standard UKSK launcher, the enlarged UKSK-M should allow larger modifications of Zircon that would be launched from them. Maybe a longer rocket buster, and conformal fuel tanks, or just increased diameter to allow enough fuel to boost the range from 1000km, to 2,500-3,500km range.

Well they are making a new air launched cruise missile to take advantage of the full size of the Blackjack weapon bays, and I suspect they will do the same with weapons in the UKSK launcher and UKSK-M launcher.

I will bring wings: small rocket ships will show Zircon targets

Coastal complexes will be able to receive target designation from the sea

The greatest danger to the enemy is hypersonic "Zircons". They are capable of accelerating to 8 Machs and hitting targets at a range of up to 500 km. First of all they will be placed on ships and mobile ground installations.

https://iz.ru/881690/aleksei-ramm-aleksei-kozachenko-bogdan-stepovoi/krylia-navedu-malye-raketnye-korabli-pokazhut-tceli-tcirkonam

The translation of this article is a mess, but I think it's interesting the part I highlighted, some other things may be interesting I think the article has some mistakes.

I think the important message in that article is that they will be sharing information and target data in a shared information space, so an enemy carrier detected by sub or satellite or ship or aircraft can be engaged by a tiny corvette which on its own would not even know the carrier was there, but has been given information from other platforms... it could hide amongst islands or even be sitting in port under an air defence umbrella of other ships and aircraft and launch its weapon with the same chance of getting a hit as if it had been launched from an SSBN or cruiser.

River-sea class corvette like Buyan-M could also hide deep inside river delta and could launch missiles against targets on the open sea or against targets deeper inside land mass. Big rivers like Neva, Don and Volga give to Buyan-M a lot of space to maneuver deep inside continential mass and can still sail in closed seas of Baltic, Black sea and Caspian sea without any problem.

Arrow wrote:

". They are capable of accelerating to 8 Machs and hitting targets at a range of up to 500 km wrote:

So only 500km and not more than 1000km.

that is the ballistic range.

This is not a ballistic missile.

The data rubbish.
It can be interpreted as the diving deep of USA submarines.

Arrow wrote:

So only 500km and not more than 1000km.

The article is talking about Zirkon launched from the coast, but they don't have a source...
Sadly for you Zirkon:
1000km+ range
Mach 9 speed

I suspect they are confusing the fact that a land or surface based launched missile used to be required to have a max range of 500km or less due to the INF treaty... but now that that is gone there are no range restrictions for sea, or land based missiles.

Zircon is a sea surface launched missile that is described as having a range of 1,000km... a land based missile would have the same range for obvious reasons and an air launched missile would probably double that range (note for Iskander it more than triples when launched high and fast from a MiG-31 but it is rocket propelled).

A lot of energy is used to get a missile moving and up into the air... when aircraft launched the aircraft does all that work so that extra energy can go into more altitude and more speed, and very simply the more speed and altitude the more range it can manage.

An Air to Air missile like an R-73 probably has an effective range of about 12km at low altitude because the air is thicker and warmer so it can't accelerate to as high a speed so when the motor burns out it is coasting at a slower speed so it runs out of energy much faster therefore its range is much shorter.

The same missile launched at high altitude at high speed means thinner air and much much higher flight speed and it can coast along for a much longer period so so called kinetic or ballistic range is something like 40-45km.

It is less critical for Zircon because its propulsion is not a fixed rocket, it has a scramjet engine so it can throttle up or down to most efficiently use its available energy, but the solid rocket booster that normally gets it airborne and moving fast fired from an aircraft will allow it to get much higher and much faster than from a ship or sub or truck launcher so it will go further faster... a scramjet is most efficient at hypersonic speeds just like on level ground your car will idle along most fuel efficiently in top gear... the top gear doesn't make the car use less fuel... but it does make it coast fastest at that fuel consumption rate while lower gears means going slower for the same fuel burn...

Could be the difference between a low-low and hi-low profile.

A hypersonic missile would not be used in a low attack trajectory... that would just not make sense... it would certainly not be flying at mach 10 at low altitude, though in theory it should be able to fly much faster and for much longer than a rocket propelled missile at low altitude it would probably lose half its speed flying low... which would make it very formidable as most things are much slower at sea level...

For instance mach 4 missiles like AMRAAM are not mach 4 missiles launched at low altitudes so it would probably not be much use against Zircon at low level... most long range high speed SAMs would have very short ranges at low altitudes... normally they would be lofted up and come down on the target at range... the target flying lower means the target is slower and easier to get to... at high altitude they wont get there in time because the target is moving much faster...

Arrow wrote:Low-low profile with 9M speed?

if it flies 9Ma then this is like ~2,7km/s last 100km can fly in something more 30seconds. Why not?

if it flies 9Ma then this is like ~2,7km/s last 100km can fly in something more 30seconds. Why not?

For the same reason the SR-71 does not fly into enemy territory at low altitude... its top speed would drop to below Mach 1.2 and it would be rather vulnerable.

Of course for Zircon the issue is that with AWACs support for HATO navies and land forces and air force there is no practical advantage of flying below the radar because the radar touches the ground/water.

It makes more sense to fly at medium or high altitude above most fighter aircraft interceptors capacity to intercept and above the reach of most SAMs, but also so fast even big long range SAMs can't get you...